The modern GOP’s fundamentalist godfather

How Billy Graham paved the way for the rise of the Christian Right

Since
turning 95 last month, Reverend Billy Graham’s health has deteriorated,
and judging by his family’s call for prayers, his life is nearing its
end. Many things will be written about Graham’s life by both disciples
and his detractors, but if you want to know where the base of today’s
Republican Party—the Christian Right—gets its mojo, look no further than
this Southern Baptist preacher.
The genetic makeup of the GOP is
one chromosome away from Graham’s DNA. Today’s Republican Party is a
neo-Confederate pro-corporation movement, thanks to the supposed
life-long Democrat (when he wasn’t endorsing Mitt Romney)—the Reverend
Billy Graham. A childhood friend of Richard Nixon’s it was Graham who
helped the disgraced president articulate the “Southern Strategy,” which
won Nixon the White House in 1968.
Steven P. Miller, author of Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South, writes
that it was Graham’s public relationship with Southern Baptist
ministers, and quips like, “Prejudice is not just a sectional problem”
and “Criticism of the South is one of the most popular indoor sports of
some Northerners these days,” that made him an much-loved figure among
his fellow Southerners. Miller also says that Graham’s evangelical
understanding of the sins of racism allowed many white Southerners to
declare themselves absolved from past guilt.
Millennials can be
forgiven for mistakenly thinking the Christian Right has been the main
strain of the GOP since ad infinitum. It hasn’t. The Christian Right is
still a relatively new dynamic on the American political landscape.
Prior to the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, no serious presidential
candidate ever claimed to have been “born again,” and the emphasis of
faith for a politician seeking high office was as rare then as a
candidate declaring his atheism is today.
But something weird
happened on the way to the forum. Religious fundamentalists banded
together to oppose Jimmy Carter’s 1980 reelection campaign (Carter was a
Southern Baptist), and in turn, put their support behind Ronald Reagan,
who was a divorced Hollywood actor. This strange coalition on the right
became a movement better known as the Moral Majority, and Billy Graham
and Jerry Falwell were the tip of the sword.

The
Moral Majority surprised nearly everyone by helping sweep Reagan into
the White House. The Sarasota Journal wrote as much on Feb 9, 1981: “The
merging of the political right with the religious right has taken the
country by surprise.”
Until then, not even your most casual
political observer believed that conservative Christians could or would
play a pivotal role in shaping the outcome of elections. Screenplay
writer Norman Lear said at the time, “The Moral Majority is neither the
moral point of view, nor the majority.”
With help from the likes
of Pat Robertson and a coalition of anti-gay, anti-Muslim,
anti-feminist, and anti-ACLU networks, the Moral Majority became the
Christian Right. While Graham publicly distanced himself from the Moral
Majority, this was done purely for political optics. The media’s
gullibility in falling for the “genteel, bipartisan, apolitical
preacher” narrative gave Graham’s voice even more political clout.
Graham
was a skillful orator, and he adeptly infused the teachings of Ayn Rand
with those of Jesus Christ. In the Bible, Jesus says, “The meek shall
inherit the earth,” and urges his followers, “To sell what you have and
give to the poor.” But Graham, with the biggest Christian following in
America during the ’80s, helped turn the biblical Jesus into a supply
side economist who wants us to be anti-government, anti-regulation,
anti-healthcare, and anti-assistance for the poor Christians.
Where
Bible Jesus feeds the masses with two loaves of bread, Ayn Randian
Jesus says, “Bugger off, this bread is mine, you lazy moochers.” While
Graham removed Southern Christians’ guilt over segregation, Ayn Rand
removed the Christian Right’s guilt for being selfish and uncaring about
anyone except themselves. Bruce E. Levine, author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite,
wrote on AlterNet, “Not only did Rand make it ‘moral’ for the wealthy
not to pay their fair share of taxes, she ‘liberated’ millions of other
Americans from caring about the suffering of others, even the suffering
of their own children.”
With the explosion of cable television,
Graham turned his church into a mega money-making empire for himself.
The self-proclaimed political non-partisan also turned his massive flock
into a loyal legion of storm troopers for the Republican Party. Today,
Graham’s son, Franklin, is the CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic
Association. He has continued his father’s legacy of being a shill and
supporter of far-right pro-corporate causes while pulling down a
$600,000 salary.
On the eve of the 2012 election, the younger
Graham bragged that it was his father’s appearance with George W. Bush
at a rally in Florida which won the Texas governor the presidency in
2000.
In endorsing Mitt Romney, Billy Graham said, “I believe it
is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base
their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel.
I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and
support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman.
Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me that America
will remain one nation under God.”
Today, evangelism is synonymous
with sacrificing the poor on the altar of big-business’ interests and
is becoming the most reliable and agitated voting bloc of the Republican
Party since the election of Reagan. We can rightfully accuse the
Christian Right of ushering in three decades of failed trickle-down
economics, which has made this nation one of the most wealth-disparate
of the developed countries. It’s the political descendants of Graham who
shut down the government with their radical Jesus said replace every government-funded service with a for-profit corporation ideology.
Graham’s
coalition of hate also put social issues front and square in the GOP
primary process, and no one was more hateful than Graham. White House
tapes recorded him openly telling President Nixon he believed that the
Jews had a “stranglehold on the American media” and that “this Jewish
stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the
drain.”
The National Archive tapes reveal the nation’s best-known
preacher in agreement with a stream of bigoted Nixon comments about Jews
and their perceived influence on American life. “If you get elected a
second time, then we might be able to do something. There also the ones
putting out the pornographic stuff,” said Graham. To which Nixon
replied, “the Jews are an irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of
bastards.”
Repeatedly, Graham’s judgment was found wanting, yet
politicians on both sides seek his and/or his family’s approval and
photo-ops, which shows how far the Christian Right has pulled this
country to the right since 1980.
Graham blames today’s economic
doldrums on God punishing the nation for its growing secularization and
what he perceives to be an increase in immorality. “I don’t see our
country turning to God…Maybe he will have to bring this country down
economically before we turn our hearts back to God. We need to repent.”
Come
the 2016 campaign season, when the likes of Rand Paul, Michele
Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum talk about how “Christianity is
under attack” and how the “takers” are destroying America, it will be
Billy Graham’s shadow you have to blame for that.